digital divide TOOLS FOR DEMOCRACY

Cell phone companies are charging us $1.00 or more for 411 information calls when they don't have to.
When you need to use the 411 information option,
simply dial 1-800-FREE-411 or 1-800-373-3411 without incurring a charge at all, except for the minutes required to make the call. This is information people don't mind receiving - Pass it on. This Works on your home phone also.

Social Security Online: Kids and Families
"This site provides materials for parents, children, young adults and teachers to learn about Social Security and what it means to you." Features a FAQ, information about applying for a number for a baby, using Social Security for planning family financial security, and benefits for children, grandchildren, and parents.Also includes stories to illustrate how the Social Security system works and a link to the Social Security office locator. From the U.S. Social Security Administration.

Canadian Youth Rights Association
The Canadian Youth Rights Association had every reason to band together for freedom from repression - laws in Canada were so arranged that the organization had to be founded in a different country.

Free Youth Internet
Yet another kernel of humanist sanity nestled under Oblivion.net that urges the revision of hierarchy and discrimination through the mature vessel of the satyagraha method and non-violent protest.

Peacefire
Peacefire helps information be free from censorship, one of the darkest demons against liberation, in spite of any forced software "protecting" youth.

Pump Up The Volume
The Internet Movie Database entry for Pump Up The Volume (1990) lists cast, credit, and plot detail

The Institute For Psychohistory
Radical psychohistorian Lloyd deMause reveals how different childrearing modes shape our mindsets, personalities, and worldviews. Discover how some parents inadvertently keep their children in a "double-bind" (Gregory Bateson).

Toronto Youth Action Committee
The sumptuous Web design alone shows the absurdity of discrimination against teenagers and the content remains a testament to youth power.

THE COMMUNICATIONS ACT OF 1934
The law that established the Federal Communications Commission and remains its fundamental charter. First paragraph of Section I: ``. . . to make available so far as possible to all people of the United States without discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, or sex, a rapid, efficient, nationwide and worldwide wire and radio-communications service with adequate facilities at reasonable charges.''

Empowerment Zone
Contains all sorts of work-arounds and guidelines for making software, Web site, and hardware accessible to the disabled. Maybe it will help.
The compliance date for government Web sites to be accessible was originally set for August 7, 2000, but this date was recently extended to a date 6 months from whenever the final guidelines are published. In the meantime, use the defacto guideline list from the W3C.

US Supreme Court
Find announcements of decisions, the court calendar, cases pending, court rules, and biographies of current justices.

Department of Commerce
Ways to close the "digital divide," the growing gap between the haves and have-nots of the information age. The meeting was called by the Secretary of Commerce, William M. Daley, after the department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration in July released its third report on the issue. Those being left behind by technology are racial minorities, the poor and people in rural areas, the study found. No one is a social engineer or a social activist when trying to bring radio service to inner-city communities and phone service to Indian reservations and computers to disabled people.